Singapore, which promotes itself as the law-abiding sanctuary of Southeast Asia, is also the hub for a crime ring operating a multi-billion-dollar scam fixing soccer matches worldwide.

A falling out among key figures in the ring has opened a window on a network which preyed on the $1-trillion-a-year sports betting industry by bribing referees, players and coaches to fix the outcome of games in soccer leagues across Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the United States.

Investigations are underway in at least two dozen countries as a result of information obtained after the Singaporean master of match fixing, Wilson Raj Perumal, was betrayed by his boss, another Singaporean, Dan Tan Seet Eng, early last year.

The ring operates by laying hundreds of small, unnoticeable bets with bookies worldwide — the Internet has greatly helped this task — after having bribed officials and players, and pre-determined the outcome of a match.

The decision by Raj Perumal, who is under protective custody in Hungary, to spill the beans has had dramatic results with police and soccer governing bodies taking aim not only at match fixers, but also at illegal gambling operations.

Earlier this month, police in Malaysia detained about 100 people rounded up in raids on illegal gambling establishments that had been involved in betting worth about $16 million on the recent European Football Championship.

Corruption in soccer in Asia — especially in China, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea and Indonesia — has been called a “cancer.” In China, the sport has become so discredited because of match fixing that audiences have dwindled at many games to a few hundred people.

Chinese authorities have taken stern measures to try to restore the credibility of the sport.

Last month, two former heads of China’s national football association were each sentenced to 10½ years in prison for taking bribes. Xie Yalong and his successor Nan Yong were also fined the equivalent of $31,700 each.

Two other senior national team officials were given heavy prison sentences for taking bribes, and four former national team players were sentenced to up to six years in prison for helping fix the results of professional league games.

Meanwhile in Italy, one of the world’s most soccer-mad countries, 22 clubs and 52 players have received bans imposed by the national football federation and half a dozen people are awaiting trial for match fixing as a result of a police operation called “Calcio scommesse” — football bet — based on information from Raj Perumal.

In South Korea, 57 people have been charged with fixing matches in the K-League. Four of those people have died, apparently by suicide.

An enormous coup for Raj Perumal was Zimbabwe where he bought off not just referees, but the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe International Football Association, Henrietta Rushwaya. The Zimbabwe Football Association has now banned 80 players from its national team for taking part in Raj Perumal’s and Rushwaya’s match fixing scams.

One of Raj Perumal’s masterpieces of trickery was to arrange “friendly” matches between national teams. These games attracted betters, but usually not the scrutiny of the International Federation of Football Associations, known by its French initials, FIFA.

On several occasions Raj Perumal was not deterred when he could not get a national team to take part. He simply created a fake team such as in a 2010 match between the Bahrain national team and Togo, whose players, it was noticed at the time, were not fit enough to play for 90 minutes.

Togo’s national football association later denied taking part.

Raj Perumal has even on occasion conned bookies and punters into believing a match was taking place which, like the horse race in the movie The Sting, was purely a piece of fabricated imagination.

Chris Eaton, the former head of security for FIFA, has said on several occasions he believes the current match-fixing cancer was started in China by triad criminal gangs. They very quickly realized the global possibilities of these crimes, whose profitability now rivals drug trafficking, arms smuggling and prostitution.

There are over 200 soccer federations recognized by FIFA and over 10,000 individual clubs. The world’s most popular sport presents a lot of potential for match fixing.

But the triad leaders turned to Singapore for frontmen because they wanted people who spoke English and who came from a country noted for its probity and whose passports are widely respected.

The ring in Singapore is reputed to have four bosses, one of whom is Dan Tan, who also operates legitimate businesses. He is wanted by the Italian police for his role in their soccer scandal.

Raj Perumal operated profitably as Dan Tan’s underling until February last year.

But Dan Tan had become convinced Raj Perumal, then in Finland pursuing match fixing business, was cheating him.

Information was slipped to the Finnish police that Raj Perumal was in the country on a fake passport. He was arrested and served a year in prison, but quickly saw that he had been betrayed and decided to get his own back by telling authorities all he knows.

Given the dedication to violent revenge of his triad masters, Raj Perumal had better hope that protective custody in Hungary means what it says.

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